


All To Come

by SteRhubarb



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Angst, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Non-werewolf Remus, Time Travel, Time Traveller Remus, inspired by The Time Traveller's Wife, uncontrollable time travel affliction
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-11-13
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:06:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,336
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25319524
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SteRhubarb/pseuds/SteRhubarb
Summary: A tall, dark, handsome stranger, staring unabashedly at Remus with a look of such awe and delight that Remus is unsettled to the point of glancing back to Ben - of all people - for help.“What am I looking for?” the customer repeats, as though in awe of the question, in awe of Remus himself. His gaze flits across Remus’ face like he’s looking for something, and then breathes quietly to himself, “I can’t believe it’s you.”--**--Remus meets Sirius for the first time, but it is not the first time Sirius has met Remus.
Relationships: Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 15
Kudos: 52





	1. April 1979 - Part I

_Ich liebe meines Wesens Dunkelstunden_

  
I love the dark hours of my being.  
My mind deepens into them.  
There I can find, as in old letters,  
the days of my life, already lived,  
and held like a legend, and understood.

Then the knowing comes: I can open  
to another life that’s wide and timeless.

**Rilke**

**  
  
-*-**

**  
  
**********Remus is up a stepladder re-shelving a collection of first-editions the afternoon he meets Sirius.

They keep these particular books out of reach from customer’s grubby hands by locking them in the glass cabinets sat snugly atop the seven-foot bookshelves lining the walls. Remus is admittedly not the biggest fan of heights, but it is kind of worth taking the task for that whiff of musty old-paper smell while he’s leaning in.

Some people might think this makes him weird, but they aren’t to know that there are in fact far weirder things about Remus Lupin.

Thus, his head is almost entirely shoved inside cabinet 12 - back of the shop, but with a clean view of the front door - when he hears Ben, his co-worker, approaching across the shop floor with a customer in tow.

Ben is a short, smug-looking prick who wears grotesque turtle-neck jumpers every day of the working week, making Remus’ job ten times harder simply by forcing him to bear witness. He struggles through every conversation trying to keep the revulsion clear from his face. Ben is also twenty-one years old and believes that this qualifies him to act as some sort of personal mentor to Remus - he follows him around the shop on shifts imparting unsolicited words of wisdom from his apparent two year advantage on life.

Ben had walked into work at 8am in a mustard-yellow number, prompting Remus to opt for stocking shelves rather than working the shop floor alongside that fucking eyesore. He’s one pair of horn-rimmed glasses and a corduroy skirt away from a Velma costume, which would be kind of funny if Remus wasn’t busy being horrified by the universe’s sick sense of humour in guiding his hand to pick out a green t-shirt for work that morning.

This is precisely why Remus refuses to even glance toward Ben as he approaches from across the shop, loudly attempting to push a customer off onto Remus by claiming he is the best adviser in-store. A red flag goes up in Remus’ mind at this because Ben never compliments Remus unless he wants something, so it can only be assumed that the customer has interrupted Ben’s working lunch on the front desk.

“ _This_ is the man you’re looking for,” Ben says, the smugness carrying over to Remus clear and pointed despite seeing from the corner of his eye that both Ben and the customer are still three display tables away. It gives Remus time to roll his eyes, slide home the last four books and lock the cabinet. He’s climbing down the ladder just as Ben strolls up.

“This guy knows the stock in here like no-one else. He’ll find _anything_ you’re after, or order it into the store if it’s not on the shelves. And don’t worry about being vague with the details, either; he loves the challenge.”

“Thanks, Ben,” Remus deadpans, coming down the ladder carefully. Once he’s wiped his dusty hands down on his thighs and snapped the stepladder shut, he leans it tidily out of the way against the bookcase and turns to the customer. He’d run out of books to shelve anyway, and he _does_ actually kind of like the challenge, so he gives an honest smile.

Stood to Ben’s left, seemingly entirely unaffected by the trash-fire of a fashion sense beside him, is a tall, dark, handsome stranger, staring unabashedly at Remus with a look of such awe and delight that Remus is unsettled to the point of glancing back to Ben - of all people - for help.

“Um, so,” Remus begins hesitantly when nobody has spoken for an awkward beat. He holds out the cabinet key to Ben to return to the safe. “What are you looking for?”

The stranger immediately barks a laugh as though this question is beyond hilarious. It’s loud and Remus jolts slightly at the sudden noise, but it’s not an unkind laugh, so Remus finds himself almost smirking back after a moment, albeit in confusion, as he asks self-consciously, “ _What?_ ”

“ _What am I looking for?_ ” the customer repeats, as though in awe of the question, in awe of Remus himself. His gaze flits across Remus’ face like he’s looking for something, and then breathes quietly to himself, “I can’t believe it’s you.”

Remus frowns. “Sorry?”

The stranger seems to shake himself. “We’ve-- Shit. I mean, _I’ve_ met you before,” he says, and then after side-eyeing Ben, adds pointedly, “ _in the past._ ”

Remus’ stomach lurches. He puts a hand out to lean a little on the stepladder and keep his vision in focus as he begins to see his absolute nightmare situation begin to play out in front of his eyes. He’s conscious of Ben, who has refused to return to his lunch and the probable queue of customers at the front desk for the thrill of watching this odd interaction play out. One glance at his wide eyes and Remus knows the laundry-list of questions he’s compiling to throw at Remus later in the break room.

In some attempt to make the situation less weird Remus begins to nod in agreement, like he remembers.

“Sirius,” the guys offers, beaming, and he still hasn’t taken his eyes off Remus’ face, as though searching for a sliver of recognition despite the obviousness that this current version of Remus has had no prior fucking clue of his existence.

It’s kind of irritating, Remus thinks, that if Sirius knows him _so well_ that he can’t grasp how wild and difficult this entire situation would be for him, and then Sirius holds out his hand awkwardly and it becomes abundantly clear that this level of intimacy is several steps removed from what he’s used to with Remus.

He doesn’t know what he’s doing. Somehow, he knows about Remus, but he doesn’t really know him enough for friendship even on a level of a casual handshake. 

“Right, Sirius. Hi.” Remus gives two perfunctory shakes of his hand and then drops it as he says his own name.

“No, I-- I know. Obviously. I mean-- shit, man, I’m so sorry. This is really weird.” Sirius huffs out another laugh and shakes his head at himself. He pushes his long black hair out of his face and stares at Remus indecisively.  
Finally, he glances at Ben, still watching the exchange intensely as though standing guard, and then smiles imploringly at Remus. “Look, I know this has got to be weird, but would you meet me later? To talk, after your shift ends? When does your shift end?”

Remus is distracted by the easy question and looks down at his watch. “Uh, it-” He has an hour and fifty minutes left. “Six.”

“So… yeah? You will?” Sirius asks hopefully, grey eyes bright, and as he tips his head Remus is a little stunned by the sharp handsomeness of his face. Remus nods mutely. Of course he fucking will.

“Brilliant! I’ll meet you outside at six o’clock then, okay?” Sirius smiles widely when Remus nods again, and Remus finds himself smiling back like he hasn’t just been absolutely blind-sided by the entire occurrence of Sirius, who even turns his beam on Ben. Ben returns the look with a polite but wary smile.

“Shit. Sorry. This is just-- this is great.” He turns in a sort of fluster, almost colliding with a display table directly behind him, and begins to leave. He glances over his shoulder as he goes to take Remus in one last time, and as Remus considers him against the backdrop of the bookshop he remembers what Sirius was here for in the first place.

He immediately crossed the floor after him. “Wait!”

Sirius turns, his expression open and expectant of something Remus can’t begin to fathom, and Remus is struck again by his clear and youthful face. This has undoubtedly been a detriment to whatever relationship exists between Sirius and the version of Remus he knows.

“We didn’t look for the book you were after,” Remus explains, and Sirius’ face brightens with mirth at the situation as he holds up a scrap of paper that he had been clutching in his hand the entire time.

“Ah, well, now this is embarrassing.” He seems to hesitate over handing Remus the slip, but smirks to himself and obviously comes to the decision that whatever is between them can withstand this.  
Remus has to squint to read the spidery black scrawl when Sirius puts it in his hand, but he thinks it says _Time Magic: The Most Comprehensive Study To Date_ , by _Heloise Shingley-Babinhaus_.

He flicks his eyes back up to consider Sirius, and a mixture of relief and apprehension stirs in him at the gentle gaze Sirius is watching him with.

“That’s quite a name,” he says, for lack of a better response, and hands back the slip. Sirius rereads it and gives a shrug tinged with disappointment at the non-response he’s been given, so Remus throws a line out for him. “I can have a look for this and bring it with me later if we have it?”

Sirius nods, seems somewhat appeased, but has returned to searching Remus’ face intently for something. Remus has to look pointedly over his shoulder toward the door to remind him that he was leaving, and then Sirius finally tears his gaze away and exits.

Remus watches him decide which way to turn down the street and then walk dazedly in that direction. Ben sidles up behind him and whistles a note of incredulity.

“What was _that_ all about?”

Remus, still gaping after Sirius’ figure receding down the road, shakes his head slowly. “I have no idea,” he lies.


	2. April 1979 - Part II

Remus leaves the shop at 6:04pm not at all dressed for the weather. It’s April but it’s still cold, bordering on icy, and he only left in a jacket that morning. He stuffs his hands in his pockets and lets the bell ding as he shuts the door carefully behind himself, before turning and colliding neatly with Sirius.

“Fuck, sorry!” Sirius laughs, and puts his hand on Remus’ arm to steady him, smiling with all his teeth. “I thought I was late so I was running a bit. Watch out right there; there’s ice, I think.”

It’s been less than two hours but the sight of Sirius feels brand new. Remus has to grapple with the colour of his wind-bitten cheeks, his excited smile, the way he goes with Remus when he takes a step back out of the way of the door just in case. He stands so close in contrast to the way his hand shook in Remus’ own earlier, and for a moment it’s difficult to decide whether this annoys him or not. They still don’t know each other just because he agreed to go for a drink and a talk.

When Remus takes another step back to ask where they should go he expects some _umm_ -ing and _ahh_ -ing to occur before they inevitably settle on the closest pub, but Sirius immediately points back the way he came, and says, “I booked us a table at The Leaky Cauldron. Is that okay?”

Remus loses some of the tension he’s been holding and smiles, pleasantly surprised. “Christ,” he breathes,” I wasn’t sure if you were a Muggle or not.”

Sirius throws his head back and laughs like he first did in the shop. It’s a short, sharp, mischievous noise, and Remus is starting to like it. He grins back until Sirius tips his head back down, looking incredulous. “I look like a Muggle? My friend James is going to love that one!”

“You could go either way,” Remus shrugs, and then realises what he’s just said. Sirius visibly suppresses a laugh, but just turns away to lead them off down the road.

It’s a brisk fifteen minute walk through the icy wind, zig-zagging through Muggle streets as the light dies in the sky and street lights turn on around them. Remus tries to make small-talk at Sirius’ back as he out-paces him, but he keeps stopping in the middle of replying to ponder aloud over the next turning and consistently forgets to pick the conversation back up again once he’s decided. Remus wheedles only as much as to learn that Sirius was born and grew up here in London, and that he attended the wizarding boarding school that Remus spent his entire childhood pining for. He tries to quash the feeling of jealousy that wells inside and let his natural curiosity for the place take over.

“Did they teach you about time magic there, then?” Remus asks in a lull at another junction.

Sirius momentarily tears his gaze from up the street to give Remus a sort of half-amused, half-confused frown. “No, of course not! It’s not really a curriculum-friendly topic, is it?”

“Isn’t it?” Remus asks, so sincerely that Sirius’s expression clears abruptly and is replaced by a sweetly stunned one.

“It’s-- you must know it’s restricted magic? It’s dangerous, right? And people barely understand it. They’re hardly gonna teach it to a bunch of teenagers in high school, are they?” Remus notes a tinge of bemused frustration as Sirius explains this to him, and he begins to feel a familiar creeping inadequacy. Luckily, he doesn’t have to work to hide the hurt because Sirius quickly picks the street to the right and stalks off again determinedly.

He jogs a little to catch up, finding it hard to drop it. As wary and uncertain Remus is of him, Sirius also feels like a well of knowledge on the one subject in Remus’ life that he has so far only been allowed to learn the hard way.

“So, what are you reading about it for?” He jerks his head back to refer to Sirius’ book request back at the shop. “It’s a pretty obscure book you were after. You’re lucky that I’m good at routing things like that out.”

“I know. You ‘ _like the challenge_ ’,” Sirius quotes over his shoulder. Remus catches a smirk, but Sirius doesn’t elaborate further and before he can press further Remus finds that they’ve finally reached the street upon which sits The Leaky Cauldron.

It’s badly lit inside and the bar area is overcrowded, but Sirius heads straight through the thickest part to a staircase tucked on the west wall that leads up to more secluded seating. They settle into a far corner and Remus wonders whether Sirius knew that he would prefer this. They go through the preliminaries of shucking off their coats, ordering drinks, waiting for them to arrive, and sharing personal stories of their past visits to the pub. 

By the time they’re finished Remus feels like he can’t stand another moment of this, no matter how nice it is, without addressing the elephant in the room. He catches himself flicking a beermat in his lap and knows he can’t force himself to wait any longer out of politeness.

“ _So_ ,” he says, sure that Sirius understands this is now the perfect time for him to deliver a full and explicit explanation. Thankfully, Sirius nods.

He finishes taking a long pull from his pint and takes his time putting it down and wiping his mouth on the back of his hand, but just when it looks like he’s going to begin, a look of realisation crosses his face and he begins patting down the pockets on his coat and jeans.

Remus watches tolerantly as Sirius finally locates a squashed packet of cigarettes in an inside jacket pocket, and scrabbles one out and between his lips, only to stop again to begin another pat-down.

“Do you need a light?” The question bursts out of Remus a little impatiently. Without waiting for an answer he leans forward over the table and pinches the end of the cigarette between his fingers for a millisecond, sitting back again as it flares to life in front of Sirius’ face.

Sirius quickly takes it from his mouth to inspect the lit end. He looks up at Remus with something a little like reverence, but quickly catches himself and replaces the cigarette between his lips to return to the search of his pockets. Remus lets out a frustrated groan.

“Ah! Sorry, did you want one?” He offers, misreading Remus’ furrowed brow and pushing the packet closer across the table.

It’s almost funny, but it draws Remus toward a type of hysteria that preludes some of the worst moments in his life, so he can only shake his head impatiently and place his elbows on the table with a clatter.

“No, but could you, you know, _start talking_?” he tries to ask politely, pressing his head between his hands, but he feels like he’s about to vibrate out of his skin with the anticipation, and Sirius looks back a little chastised.

“No, I know, I’m just--” he holds the tip of his tongue between his teeth as he fishes inside another hidden pocket within his jacket, before finally whipping out a small brown unsealed envelope, holding it up triumphantly between two fingers for Remus to see. “Got it.”

It looks innocuous, but Remus has the bone-tingling sense of something strange about to unfold. He pulls his elbows back from the table and straightens in his seat so as to tip his head to the side and glimpse the handwritten name on the front of the envelope. 

Perhaps he should already have prepared himself for a moment like this in life, and he feels something akin to embarrassment when a shiver runs through him and goosebumps raise on his arms as he recognises the neat script spelling out Sirius’ name has been written in his own hand.

Remus peers past the letter at Sirius who gives him a small gentle smile, as though to sympathise with the fucking absurdity of this moment, then perches the ciggy in the corner of his mouth so as to use both hands to tug a well-creased piece of parchment from inside the envelope and unfold it. He places it on the table between them so that Remus is able to read a list of dates - again, he notices, entirely written in his own hand - in some other place in time.

“ _Fuck me_ ,” he breathes, reaching out to touch it, but Sirius only responds by nodding slowly and letting a heavy sigh out through his nose. He sits back in his seat and begins chewing on a thumbnail nervously, allowing Remus time to look over the letter.

Remus flips the sheet over to check for more on the back, and then turns it back over to begin reading the dozen-or-so dates that stretch over the last ten years of his life. None of them strike him as particularly significant, so he looks up again at Sirius for help. “What happened on these dates?”

“‘Happened’, ‘happens’, y’know?” Sirius flaps a hand, and then realises he’s being awfulling flippant and frowns at himself. He stubs the cigarette out in a large plant pot nearby and tucks both hands between his knees to keep them still. “They’re the times we met.”

“This spans-” Remus gestures down at the paper, “ _years_. You’re- what? Eighteen? Nineteen? And I’m how old, meeting a child?”

“You were usually in your thirties, I think. I don’t really know, but youngest, maybe early twenties?”

“Why am I travelling back to see a child grow up in the seventies?” Remus asks abruptly.

When he looks up at Sirius for another answer he thinks he catches something like hurt on his face. “I… guess I don’t know. I mean, why do you go _any_ where?”

 _Touché_ , Remus thinks, and sighs heavily as he looks back down at the list. Honestly, it hasn’t happened all that much since the first time at five, but he knows there’s no control over where in time he ends up. There’s some premonitory symptoms he and his father managed to pick up on, and that can sometimes help him prepare mentally for an episode, but there’s never a way to stop it, and until this moment he had always believed there was no rhyme or reason to when he gets snatched from time, and where he’s subsequently thrust.

“What kind of places do you go to most?” Sirius asks after a long moment watching Remus poring over the list in silence.

Remus lets his gaze skitter across the stained tabletop as he tries to remember the last few times. “...I go back to when my mum was still alive. Or, I end up with myself at home, or at school. The rest have been fairly random.”

Sirius is nodding when Remus focuses back in, and then carefully, whilst not looking Remus in the eye for the first time all evening, says, “so, maybe, people who you-- who might have been important or, at least, maybe significant in your life?”

Remus stares at him across the table. Sirius swipes his thumb through the condensation on his glass, shoulders tense as he chews on the inside of his lips, waiting for Remus to comment on what he’s said. It gives Remus time to take him all in. His strong jaw and flawless skin, the light grey eyes and their striking contrast to the ink-black hair. He makes Remus think of the beauty and terror of ancient Greek statues, even now in his vulnerability, and just as this thought occurs to Remus it feels like something startlingly obvious finally clicks into place in his mind.

He takes a deep breath and pushes the letter back across the table.

When Sirius lifts his gaze expectantly, Remus nods and says, “Yeah, maybe.”

A slow smile spreads across Sirius’ face. He shifts forward in his seat and presses his finger to the first date on the list - _20th December 1966_.

“I was seven the first time,” his breath hitches like he just manages to stop himself from throwing too much at Remus, and instead tries to measure the information carefully before continuing. “I was at my cousin’s house. It was better when we were there, but sometimes you’d show up at my house. We lived sort of on a square? With this small park in the middle of all the houses, and you’d show up there. Nobody else would go inside because it was overgrown and shit, so we got hours to ourselves.”

“To do what?”

Sirius shrugs. “Talk, play. You’d teach me things. Sort of like a mentor,” he smirks and it’s entirely possible Remus catches his one exposed ear turning red. “I looked up to you a lot.”

“I’d tell you things about the future?” Remus asks, a little scandalised, but to his relief Sirius shakes his head.

“No, and it annoyed the shit out of me. And I’d press you about it all the time.” Sirius laughs to himself. “Sometimes you gave me hints, but nothing big. Nothing helpful.”

Remus feels a pang of guilt, and then a bit annoyed at himself. If he’d told Sirius then Sirius could have passed on the information now, and he’d know what to expect. “So, you didn’t know you’d see me in the bookshop?”

Sirius does his wonderful barking laugh. “Fuck-no! Are you kidding? I’m not an actor! I think I almost passed out with shock!”

This, for some strange reason, embarrasses Remus, and he looks back down at the list. He points to the one at the very bottom: _4th November 1975_. “You didn’t know you’d see me again after this date?”

“I did, actually. You told me there wouldn’t be any more visits, but that _we_ -” Sirius gestures between the two of them, “-would meet next. But not _when_. Or where, really. I just had to have faith that he knew how it all played out.”

“He sounds like a frustrating dick.”

Sirius grins. “Sure, sometimes.”

“So you’ve been sort of… waiting? For me?”

There’s a moment of embarrassed silence. Sirius’s hands shift in his lap like he wants to look for another cigarette. “I suppose you could put it like that, yeah,” he says honestly. “I’ve been waiting for him.”

“Why?” Remus asks, imploringly. It still doesn’t make a great deal of sense to him, but Sirius just shakes his head at Remus with confusion.

“‘ _Why?_ ’ Because--” Sirius scoffs, struggles to meet Remus’ eye again. “Because your future self meant a lot to me, and he’s you, so _you_ mean a lot to me, _okay?_ I know it sounds weird, but I figure you’d understand that by now, being, you know, _the one who actually does the weird bit_.” He finishes on a little huff, and then seems to realise that he’s become inadvertently defensive and rubs a hand over his eyes. “I’m sorry. I didn’t realise how difficult this would be.”

Remus nods. “It’s just a lot to take in, in one go. Even ‘ _being the one who actually does the strange bit_.’”

Sirius looks apologetic as he reaches over to refold the letter and replace it within its envelope, but then says, “No, I meant for me. You did warn me, but--” He sighs, sounding dejected and frustrated with himself, slipping the envelope back inside his jacket carefully. “You told me to remember that you wouldn’t have any idea who I am, so I should go easy on you, and I still expected you to-- I don’t know…”

He looks small suddenly as he slumps back into his seat. “Maybe, that there’d be some part of the magic of it that would let you still remember me somehow.”

“It doesn’t work like that,” Remus says gently, a familiar guilt mixing with the myriad emotions currently pulling him in all directions.

Sirius nods, hopelessly. Remus feels like he’s kicked a puppy.

“It might be easier to start again, from the beginning,” he proposes carefully. “Sort of, as if we’re normal people meeting for the first time. If that’s okay?”

Sirius raises an eyebrow at him, and Remus feels suddenly inadequate in the face of someone who knows a version of himself that is more than he is now - older, probably wiser, maybe cooler. He figures if this is going to be the start of something between them, he should acknowledge that there’s a desire in him for Sirius to agree to his suggestion, to stick around, to take the faith that this older Remus had instilled in Sirius and place it now in this inexperienced boy sat in front of him.

"God, Remus - _obviously_."


	3. June 1968

Remus - 8 & 27 

Remus is knee-deep in the long, itchy grass at the far end of the playing field because some little arsehole in his class over-armed his ball into the fucking distance just to get rid of him.  
  
This is his school life now; a chore of trying not to appear affected by the fact that half of his class ignore him entirely and the other half openly find him an absolute fucking freak.  
  
In three short years he’s gone from the quiet kid whom classmates struggled to talk to because his mum died, to the resident weirdo. Which is fucking ironic because _weird_ is tantamount to _unknown_ , but you can’t exactly get to know someone if you’re actively trying to run in the opposite direction just to avoid having to empathise with someone’s mum dying. Maybe eight year olds just can’t confront the possibility that their own mum’s could die just as easily, which, honestly, Remus supposes he sort of gets that.  
  
So he’s spending his afternoon’s free time wading through the overgrown borders and running through a fully self-satisfying imaginary conversation with Huw Bevan, within which Remus very graciously forgives him for pretending to let Remus into their game before immediately lobbing his ball extremely unsubtly to the farthest bounds of school property. Huw is terrifically sorry in this fantasy, and their classmates expect Remus to kick off, but he acts really mature about it and they all start to respect him for it. Maybe Huw cries, but then Remus feels like that's a little too unrealistic and reels it back.  
  
He’s muttering to himself examples of the things he’d say as he parts the grasses in his wake, searching for the flash of burgundy of his cricket ball, which is how he misses himself sitting in the grass about five yards ahead until he’s within 2 feet.  
  
Remus appears to be just waiting there, bizarrely clad in the only fabrics he could get his hands on. Unfortunately, this includes a blazer belonging to Mrs Thomas who teaches year six. It swamps his frame in dull shades of brown that almost camouflage him in the dry grass.  
  
It’s wild to process that he’s both remembering this moment and living in it, but there’s also a little comfort in knowing he can’t really fuck it up - he can’t scare the eight year old back into the building shouting about a strangely dressed man in the field, because he _knows_ he doesn’t react that way.  
  
Boy Remus slowly takes in the blazer, the sort of skirt thing, the bare feet. He grimaces a little.  
  
“Hey,” Remus nods up at himself in greeting.  
  
“Your clothes are really strange,” the boy Remus opens with, like it’s his duty to let this guy know.  
  
“Yeah,” he sighs, plucking at the blazer with the unforgivably hideous owl brooch on the lapel that will stick in Remus’ mind from this day forward, “Mrs Thomas’ jacket was the only thing I could find. And I had to cut off a bit of the curtain in the hall for a… wrap?” He gestures down at the swathe of black fabric around his hips.  
  
“Your skirt’s the hall curtain?”  
  
Remus somehow feels a little more ashamed having to confirm this than he did in the actual act of cutting it down. He just nods. “You’ll probably stare at it every time you go for assembly now. The school won’t pay for a new one. Sorry.”  
  
Boy Remus considers him carefully, before asking, “Did someone rob your clothes?”  
  
“No, I wasn’t robbed.”  
  
“Did you take them off on purpose?” This question is asked with commendable boldness for an eight year old essentially asking a man if he’s a pervert intent on exposing himself to primary school children.  
  
Remus can’t help laughing a little. “No, Remus, they just got left behind when I was brought here.”  
  
The boy goes very still hearing this, and Remus recalls vividly the train of thought shooting through his young mind at those words. He watches himself shift in the grass and glance back toward the school building briefly, before searching Remus’ face intently.  
  
“Maybe you know what that’s like, Remus?” He holds his own gaze steadily and marvels at the sensation. It feels like he can sense the current of magic flowing between them, through time. There’s a metallic fizz on his tongue.   
  
He gets a noncommittal shrug of one shoulder, so tries a little harder.  
  
“I’m talking about when you go to another place, that you’re sometimes not familiar with, and you don’t have your things with you anymore. Hmm?”  
  
The boy turns away again, but Remus suddenly remembers this as embarrassment. Observing it from the other side is surprisingly painful, and he wishes he could wrap himself in his arms to protect. He does the next best thing.  
  
“You don’t have to be frightened of me; we’re the same. I know it doesn’t feel very good when it happens. I still get scared, every time, and it can be embarrassing- obviously!” Remus smirks when he catches his own eye here, gesturing to the owl brooch again.   
  
Boy Remus chews the inside of his cheek for a moment. “Did you come here just to see me?”  
  
He remembers this moment with such painful clarity - remembers wanting it so much.  
  
“It doesn’t really work like that. We don’t get to choose where we go,” he explains, the inexplicable desire to apologise for this pressing on his tongue. “But I can help you with ways to manage your trips better, Remus. I’ve been dealing with it for years, I would hope I’ve got a few tips I can give to you.”  
  
The proposal hangs in the air for a long moment before the boy Remus slowly meets Remus’ eye.


	4. April 1980

Remus is startled to learn that there are just certain people you click with. It’s not something you can understand until you encounter it yourself, and after spending years of his life making valiant attempts at befriending children in his class, kids in his village, various workmates, and coming up with a grand total of zero people he could call an actual friend, he finds it terrifyingly easy to get along with Sirius.  
  
Remus as a specimen is a bag of nerves and anxiety, second-guessing his words and actions almost constantly, but Sirius’ friendship is offered to him without cost or expectation. It is such a solid and certain thing handed to him on a daily basis that the revelation doesn’t hit him until he’s a year in, stood in a telephone box on Hammersmith Road telling his dad that he thinks he’s going to move in with Sirius.  
  
“Is he normal? How do you know he’s not a mad-axe murderer?” Remus’ father grumbles, an embarrassingly serious tone to the question.  
  
“What? It’s been ages; I think I’d know if my best friend was a mad axe murderer by now.” It just comes tumbling out and he only gets to marvel at the words once they’re already out in the world  
  
“Well, you know your own mind. If you’re sure you can afford it, then just make sure you’re put on the lease and he can’t use it against you if it all goes tits-up.”  
  
Remus bristles at this, but he knows it’s also sound advice, and there’s no point in arguing with the man when he appears to be in a good mood.  
  
"Yes, Da."

“There's some money here I’d been meaning to give you for your birthday, anyway, so put that towards it or what have you. S'up to you, of course,” his father adds in such a low, modest grumble that Remus barely catches it.   
_  
Christ_ , he thinks, letting out a careful breath so as not to appear that he’s literally sighing with relief down the phone, _Lupins really fucking hate talking about money_.  
  
“Thank you. I’ll send you the address once I’m in.”  
  
His father grunts his acknowledgement and offers only an abrupt “alright then” as parting before the line goes dead.  
  
With that settled, Remus hangs up and presses his back against the glass of the booth to pick back over the conversation, to poke at the sensation of even just _thinking_ the words ‘best friend’.  
  
Some subconscious part of Remus must have been logging away every time Sirius bought him a drink when Remus was short of cash, or pressed books into his hands to borrow, or turned up at the bookshop around lunchtime with sandwiches from Remus’ favourite deli round the corner from Sirius’ flat - flagging them as ‘of note’, highlighting them as something special.  
  
He knows about James, of course. There's no comparison to a friend who has been with you since childhood, but he thinks that what he and Sirius have is an altogether different creature. It feels different.

  
\---------------------------------------------------------------

  
Sirius points past Remus’ shoulder and then back down the hall at the doors they passed on the way in. “Kitchen,” he tells him, “bathroom, my room, yours, and the one at the end opposite the stairs is just a cupboard.”  
  
With that grand tour complete he places his hands on his hips and smiles at Remus expectantly. “So! What do you think?”  
  
Remus nods while he gathers his words. “It’s- yeah, it’s nice. Cosy.”  
  
Sirius snorts. “I know it’s a bit grubby at the minute, but I’ll have a reason to stop living like a slob once you’re here, too.”  
  
“It’s fine,” Remus reassures him, glancing around to show that there’s nothing in this room at least that startles him, and almost immediately his gaze lands on a blood stain beside the sofa that’s about the size of a dinner plate. He tries to glance away again and pretend he hasn’t seen it, but Sirius follows his gaze and says, “ _Ah_ .”  
  
“Hope it wasn’t as bad as all that,” Remus offers, because it is really a startlingly large patch when he thinks about it. More than a cut on the finger or a nosebleed, unless it was a really bad one.  
  
“Nah, it’s nothing. From ages ago, really.” His ears and cheeks begin to tinge pink but despite this he adds boldly, “It commemorates the day I lost my virginity.” And with that he barks a laugh, gives Remus one of his signature mysterious winks and stalks off into the kitchen, leaving Remus to puzzle over the possibilities with a grimace.  
  
It’s only later on his bus ride back to his current cramped flat above a late-opening chippy that Remus thinks over Sirius’ words.  
  
He’d been doing tremendously well until now to pack the nerves down enough to make room for a little excitement at the prospect of finally meeting Sirius’ other friends, but now something has changed. He tries to move away from the feeling, but catches himself wondering about why Sirius would lie about the blood stain being old when it had clearly been there for no longer than a week.  
  
Remus had stood over it for a few minutes more back at the flat while Sirius had put the kettle on, and touched the memory of his father's warning briefly, before brushing it away and stepping into the kitchenette to help grab the teabags.

**Author's Note:**

> Heads up: the rating will be bumped up for future chapters.
> 
> Oh yeah, and also, like, fuck JK Rowling :/


End file.
